Criminal Indictment Against David Daleiden Dismissed

“Defendant David Robert Daleiden’s motion to quash the indictment is pending before this Court. . . . Cause No. 2071353 is ORDERED DISMISSED for want of jurisdiction.”

Those are the first and last sentences of a Texas Criminal Court’s ruling from earlier this week. Those sentences reveal what we at Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) have been saying since we first started defending David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress back when the first lawsuit was filed in July 2015 – all of his legal woes are nothing more than Planned Parenthood’s throwing of taxpayer money at lawyers, and desperate hope that those lawyers can confuse the issues. When the legal battles run their expensive course, nothing will be left standing except David Daleiden, the Center for Medical Progress, and the proof that Planned Parenthood has been engaged in a nationwide enterprise of selling baby body parts for profit.

In addition to the three civil lawsuits in which FCDF is defending David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress, on January 25, 2016, a grand jury in Harris County, Texas indicted David Daleiden on two absurd criminal charges, including using a fake ID and offering to purchase fetal tissue for valuable consideration. The charges are plainly absurd, but have been constantly held up by pro-abortion advocates who need something to back up their oft-repeated lie that David Daleiden and his undercover videos have been discredited.

So on April 14, 2016, through his Texas criminal attorneys, David Daleiden filed a motion to quash that indictment because of the procedural irregularities that gave rise to it:

The Josh Schaffer press conference, on behalf of PPGC [Planned Parenthood Gulf coast] wherein Mr. Schaffer explicitly states he was kept abreast of the Grand Jury’s happenings by someone from the prosecutor’s office clearly proves the secrecy of these proceedings were severely compromised. Additionally, the fact that the prosecutor held a press conference, stating the findings of the Grand Jury, and then publicly released copies of the indictments online the very same day – well before Mr. Daleiden had been brought in for the charges – give further evidence that the duty to keep the proceedings secret was breached. To further demonstrate collusion with the pro-abortion lawyers, an attorney for the National Abortion Foundation, Mr. Derek Foran, announced to the world via The New York Times that he had insider information and “learned about the indictment in Texas about a half-hour before they were publicly announced.” Because these solemn duties and laws were intentionally violated or at the very least intentionally neglected, the validity and integrity of the grand jury process is invalid and the charging instrument must be quashed.

And yesterday, the Court granted the first half of that motion. The Court, while reviewing the motion, realized that the indictment for the purchase of fetal tissue was so fatally flawed that it did not even have jurisdiction to address the arguments in the motion, and had to dismiss the indictment outright. The hearing for the second half of that motion, against the fake ID charge, is still set for July. The lack of jurisdiction is based on the failure by the grand jury and the Texas District Attorney to properly charge David Daleiden with the crime of purchasing fetal tissue. In other words, this is a case of bad lawyering and failing to follow procedure. But properly following procedure is very important in the law, and is the means by which the law ensures that justice is done.

It seems that the Texas District Attorney simply cut too many corners in attempting to help Planned Parenthood get their headline, and now will see their case against David Daleiden fall apart.